Ability-Based Tiers

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I was wondering if this is a good idea, seeing as the current tiers are based on usage.

Usage isn't really a good idea anymore because the community is so small and a lot of those usage statistics consist of low-level newcomers.

I hate to say it again, but the emergence of wrap on the main simulators does shake things up in the tier list. For example, victreebel and cloyster are clearly OU in terms of ability in the wrap meta.

I think they should be called 'Overused' or 'Underused' either, because that indicates usage.

I know people will say that it's too old up change now, but I think it'd be a good change and give us oldgenners something to do on these forums.
 
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Jorgen

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Cloyster is actually listed as OU now thanks to Hipmonlee. I don't think Victreebel should even sniff OU (or whatever equivalent you're thinking of), as outside of dedicated Wrap teams Victreebel doesn't have much of a place in RBY.

I don't think this is all that interesting or worthwhile a change to make, to be honest.
 
I've used bel extensively and I'd say it's definitely up there.

The key is not thinking of it as an SD sweeper. If you play it like that then it becomes very niche and possibly outclassed by other sweepers. I'd say it's definitely OU if played as a controller and status spreader. It's still great if it's the solo wrapper on a team.
 
I've used bel extensively and I'd say it's definitely up there.

The key is not thinking of it as an SD sweeper. If you play it like that then it becomes very niche and possibly outclassed by other sweepers. I'd say it's definitely OU if played as a controller and status spreader. It's still great if it's the solo wrapper on a team.
Victreebel is not OU. Cloyster is with Clamp legal because its movepool has advantages over Lapras's that are similar (though not equal) in magnitude to Lapras's advantages over Cloyster. Victreebel gets Razor Leaf (which is good, but not THAT much better than Egg's Psychic) and Wrap (which is good), but loses Ground resistance, Psychic resistance, Explosion, and an awful lot of bulk on both sides. Gengar gets away with Psychic weakness because it's got the holy-shit-level exclusive Normal immunity, a crapload of special bulk, AND it's the fastest sleeper and (usable) exploder. Victreebel beats nothing that RLeaf doesn't hit for super-effective damage (well, apart from Chansey if it's running Swords Dance), it walls nothing outside of TobyBro, and heck if you want a wrapper that has paralysis and OHKOs Rocks Dragonite already does that with far better stats, Ground immunity, and no Psychic weakness.

Victreebel is not terrible, but neither is it a proper OU. Its movepool is unique - its signature move is one of very few that are legitimately relevant - but its stats are mediocre and its typing's frankly awful (weakness to Ice AND Psychic, and only minor resistances). It has a total wall in OU (Gengar) and is outsped and 2HKOed by 3 of the 7 Staples (Tauros, Starmie, Alakazam). At best it's on the level of Articuno and Jolteon, and Smogon doesn't put either of those in OU.
 
Gar's immunity isn't that good because every normal attacker except persian (who admittedly is a lot better in the wrap meta) has ground attacks too, and chain switching to EQ immunities is a scrub tactic that rarely works on good players.

You're making the mistake of comparing bel to egg simply because they're grass types. Have one or two ice resists on your team, and you could justify running both grasses.

And eggy's psychic is nowhere near as good as bel's leaf. It hits nearly everything for more damage, ignores boosts, hits relevant pokemon for SE damage, and OHKOs goldon. The only common pokemon it doesn't do well against are gar, chansey, egg and nite. Gar is a crap pokemon anyway, and top players generally agree with that. It also loses to status plus wrap switches. Eggy and chansey you outspeed, so bel can wrap and switch out, and nite gets owned by status if it does anything but wrap first turn, so you just switch if it does.

Anything else that bel doesn't outspeed is taking a hefty chunk of damage for taking a razor leaf. Eggy's psychic does lower than 20% to like half of a standard team, and it has nothing else to scare them with other than status and explosion.

Eggy is used for his defenses plus explosion and status. Not saying that bel is better, just that they have different roles.
 
I know RBY was created before the modern definition of a tier existed, but I don't think it should deserve any special standing and should remain under the same process as modern tiers. Also for the most part tiers are frozen when a generation ends, any changes should only me made if there is a radical shift in use, like Vaporeon in GSC from what I can gather, Cloyster I suppose was also enough of a jump to garner OU. Victreebel is at best a borderline OU Pokemon, barely making the cut from the RBY stats I can gather.
 
The issue is that the tiers do not accurately reflect the viability of certain pokemon due to 1. Being a million years old and not acknowledging advances in the meta and 2. Not accounting for wrap, which is now legal on the two main RBY simulators (Joim intends to implement wrap when it gets fixed).

I'd say bel is better than cloy on pure ability. cloy is just more appreciated due to the current meta. Cloy is more of a meta-based pokemon, in that what it makes it so good is the popularity of ice attacks and physical pokemon. It's good because of his 4x ice resist and freeze immunity, clamp, and being the best physical wall in the game despite having a physical weakness. In a different meta cloy could be bad.

Bel is the type of pokemon, that whilst not being the top pokemon, has a niche in every meta because it can cripple every pokemon in the game in the one moveset, then can use wrap to switch to a counter. Every pokemon has something to fear from bel when switching in if the bel doesn't have to commit to wrap on the pokemon currently in. Certain pokemon can switch into cloyster without fear, and just absorb a clamp and switch to something more appropriate.

Both of these pokemon have been the core of my team for over 6 months now. I'd say cloyster is easier to use due to his defences and being able to rest, but bel is more of a game-changer and I always prioritse bel over cloy in terms of protection.

Once again, I think bel's under appreciation comes from the stigma that it's a SD sweeper. I think if people could see what its effectiveness as a support pokemon over a number of battles they'd agree with me on how good it is.
 

Mr.E

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Victreebel is alright. Just because it's usable doesn't necessarily mean OU though. Not everything that is viable is commonly used, in fact it's not even possible considering limited team size.

This is about the only competitive gaming community ever that bases tiers on raw usage rather than actual merit but hey that's the indirect cause of why I don't play current-gen anymore (most people don't know what the hell they're doing). NOT MUCH I CAN DO ABOUT IT APPARENTLY.
 
It's not just usable, it's a game-changer whose effectiveness isn't really meta-specific. Like a third of the game is usable in wrap because the ability to get in without taking a hit patches up the main weakness of a lot of pokemon, but that doesn't mean I think they're OU in terms of ability. Dodrio is a good example of what I'm talking about. It's a lot better in the wrap meta, but I still wouldn't say it's OU.

Bel is in a different boat entirely. It has the stigma of being a BL because it was looked through a non-wrap scope as an SD sweeper. Poliwrath has a similar problem, in that it's always been viewed as an amnesia sweeper when in fact it has better niches in OU than amnesia, but poliwrath is still crap anyway so it doesn't matter.
 

Jorgen

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No, it's that Victreebel has the stigma of being, for the most part, a worse Grass-type than Exeggutor. Even if they do fill different roles, people aren't likely to run 2 Grasses on their team, and Vic just doesn't provide the defensive match-to-match stability that Egg offers.

I feel like the title of this thread no longer reflects the topic of discussion. Wasn't your main point to propose tiers based on power, rather than usage, rather than to suggest Victreebel be bumped up to OU? Never mind that the RBY and GSC tier lists, when they were first conceived, actually were based on perceived power since detailed usage stats didn't really exist.
 
I hate to say it again, but the emergence of wrap on the main simulators does shake things up in the tier list. For example, victreebel and cloyster are clearly OU in terms of ability in the wrap meta.

There is no "emergence of Wrap" or "Wrap meta" because Wrap has has never been banned on Smogon

So it's not like suddenly it was unbanned and could make an impact like it never had before
 
Well if you're gonna pick between eggy and bel, it is a case of defence vs offence. Thing is, I feel offence becomes more rewarding at higher levels of play where you can rely on good play for defence. It's like how people seems to think that zapdos wrecks non-ground teams. That's garbage, because zapdos can be beaten by simply playing well. I've done that multiple times and I'm nothing special too. Also too, wrap alleviates bel's defensive issues somewhat by letting it get in without taking hits.

As for the topic, I have gone off-track but the initial point was that bel would be OU on ability.

Spies- True, but wrap wasn't played often because it was bugged on the simulators. Assuming PS eventually implements wrap, the top two simulators will have wrap legal.
 
Like it or not, Dre, Bel is always going to compete with Egg because they're both status-using, moderate-speed specials that resist Tbolt and are weak to IBeam/Blizzard. Bel gets four good moves that Egg doesn't (Razor Leaf, Wrap, Swords Dance, Body Slam) but it still has most of the same matchup issues that Egg does (Zam, Jynx, Zapdos, Chansey/Starmie). Sure, there are niche uses for Bel that make use of one or more of those moves, but I'm not really seeing how that's so different from using Raichu for its Surf, and Raichu's not OU by a long shot.

(Also, I think you might want to stop looking down your nose at everyone, because all your moaning about "high-level" play sounds awfully stuck-up.)
 
I'm not saying I'm a better player than everyone though when I mention high level play. I've played high level players before, so I have an idea of what high level play is like.

Bel does better in pretty much all of those MUs except zapdos and zam, and those guys have to twave otherwise they'll get paralysed and put in a disadvantageous position. Assuming no sleep, bel has a chance against jynx because of para wrap unless the jynx crits blizzard or paraslams. Against starmie it's a bit of a coin toss. If star twaves and bel leafs (leaves?) thenI'm pretty sure it'll be KO'd by another leaf even if it tries to recover. If starmie blizzards or psychics and bel stun spores, then it's only a few wraps before star is in leaf range. Against eggy and chansey, you can just go for wrap. Note that all of those pokemon have disadvantageous MUs if they switch into stun spore.

I'm not saying that these are amazing MUs for bel, but it at least has a shot at them. The main MU that eggy has over bel is gar, but note that gar is a bad switch into bel unless it switches into leaf and is not already statused.

And it's not just about the moves that eggy doesn't have, it's about how it uses its moves. For example, bel is a better paralyser than stun spore eggy. This is because it forces more switches due to more things being in KO range of its main attacking move. It's also more likely to pull off the double powder combo because people often switch out the sleeping pokemon immediately fearing SD. I'm not saying bel is better, as eggy does have defences plus explosion, but it's a lot closer than what people realise.

And bel is nothing is like raichu, I have no idea where you got that analogy from. Raichu is an inferior electric whose only selling point is that it isn't walled by grounds. It will never KO them unless it takes paralysis and then surfs them on the switch. The fact that isn't walled by grounds is made redundant by the fact that it's walled by like half of a standard team. Bel threatens every pokemon in the game between stun spore wrap and leaf, even gengar if you include chain-switching. The two are not at all comparable.
 

Mr.E

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If you're using Victreebel specifically for Wrap (it's good enough to do other things FYI), you have to protect it like a typical sweeper (such as Tauros) from paralysis which greatly restricts the matchups you can switch it into especially since it's also weak to Psychic. (And Gengar is a bad switch-in to Victreebel? Thing can't touch Gengar, ever. Who cares if you can paralyze it at that point?)

God damn, you can't even avoid turning your own topics into Wrap bullshit. We get it. Wrap beats everything. Onix should be OU because of it. We should unban Mewtwo because it's weak to Wrap (after you paralyze it and if you avoid getting OHKOed switching in). It's not broken though! Why don't you fucking marry Wrap? Dear god make it stop.

Never mind that the RBY and GSC tier lists, when they were first conceived, actually were based on perceived power since detailed usage stats didn't really exist.
Yeah but Hip went and reshaped the tiers to his liking like some sort of noob who thinks Cloyster is good. :( At least I persuaded him to keep GSC Zam BL...
 
Well yeah, bel is only good with wrap. And you're right, the main weakness bel has is that it can usually only afford to take one hit and can't take status unless it's trading for a KO or a cripple that opens up one of its teammates. However, this weakness is mitigated to an extent by wrap-switching, and just by good play.

And of course I'm going to mention wrap. The whole point of the thread is that the tiers would be different if they were based on ability, and if they accommodated wrap. Wrap may have been legal here all along, but it was rarely used due to buggy mechanics on the sims and that is reflected in the tier list.
 
It's even ok against tauros too. It's great when paired with bel or an electric resist.

What makes it so good is that it can do a lot in one moveset. It can threaten offensively with blizzard and explosion, control with clamp and wall with rest. Rest and explosion mean that it can afford to take paralysis in certain situations. It's definitely OU in terms of ability. I'd say it's better than lapras with wrap, and I rate lapras quite highly.
 
I'd say it's better in wrap, but worse in non-wrap. I say that because they fill a similar role, you would't put both on a team. Just as how I would say that rhydon is better in wrap, and golem is better in non-wrap. Then again though, I think they should both be BL in non-wrap.
 

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I cant remember why I moved Cloyster. It seems like a strange decision. Not because I dont think it is not better than any UU, but because I cant really think why I cared enough to move it. Did I move a bunch of stuff with it when I deleted borderline?

I do remember that it is worth having it in OU because OU tells you about all the things you need to pay attention to when you build a team. It is a real pain loading a team with only things slower than Cloyster plus a Tauros and trying to deal with clamp. Moving victreebel into OU isnt really important because if you have something faster than cloyster you have something faster than vic too.
 
I cant remember why I moved Cloyster. It seems like a strange decision. Not because I dont think it is not better than any UU, but because I cant really think why I cared enough to move it. Did I move a bunch of stuff with it when I deleted borderline?

I do remember that it is worth having it in OU because OU tells you about all the things you need to pay attention to when you build a team. It is a real pain loading a team with only things slower than Cloyster plus a Tauros and trying to deal with clamp. Moving victreebel into OU isnt really important because if you have something faster than cloyster you have something faster than vic too.
There is one extremely important exception - Starmie switches into Cloyster easily but can't switch into Victreebel even if it's Wrap-locked because a Wrap cycle + 1 Razor Leaf will in all likelihood kill it.
 
Yeah honestly by that logic anything that gets outsped shouldn't be in OU.

If you include chain-switching, bel threatens every switch-in in the game with the one moveset. Let's not forget it's countered by speed, but also has paralysis and can realistically force switches without being wrap-locked. It's also a really good double-powderer because of the threat of swords dance.

I don't think anyone who has seen a bel used in a proper team composition can argue it's not at least lower OU (it's definitely better than stuff like gengar and jolteon) on ability. The question is whether ability should factor into usage-based tiers.
 
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